“I returned from Washington this morning. Have read your
speech with great satisfaction. I think you have touched
the public pulse more widely than ever before.”
* * * * *
The speech had a different reception in England, being
criticized by the press, and by Earl Russell in a public speech.
The New York correspondent of the London _Standard_ called Mr.
Sumner “the mouthpiece of the President,” and said that the
speech “had been carefully examined by the President, and was
analyzed by the confidential members of the Cabinet, before
being let off to the public in this great city.” This was a
mistake. Neither the President nor any of his Cabinet had seen
a line of the speech.
Its delivery was reported by the London _Times_ of September
22d, in a telegraphic despatch from Greencastle, in Ireland:--
“He denounced the conduct of the British Government in
permitting the building of war steamers in British ports
for the Confederates and recognizing on the part of the
South any belligerent rights upon the ocean. He disbelieved
that either France or England would intervene in favor
of a state that based itself upon Negro Slavery, and
asserted that all intervention in the internal affairs of
another nation was contrary to law and reason, unless such
intervention were obviously on the side of human rights.”
The _Times_ followed with an elaborate leader, undertaking to
correct statements of law and fact, dwelling especially on
the allegation, that, without the concession of belligerent
rights, the supply of munitions of war to rebels would have
been a violation of English law. Here Mr. Sumner had the
authority of the English Law Lords in Parliament, openly
declaring that without such concession the building of a Rebel
ship in England would have been under the penalties of piracy,
and it is difficult to see why a corresponding penalty would
not have followed the supply of munitions of war. In each
case the article is supplied for offence against a friendly
power. Sir George Cornewall Lewis, remarkable for learning
and good sense, has said: “The law of England recognizes
the principle of protecting a foreign government by its own
municipal regulations”[169]; and he refers to the trials for
libels on foreign sovereigns, and also to the proceedings in
1858 against Simon Bernard, the Frenchman, indicted for a
plot to assassinate the Emperor Louis Napoleon, in supplying
the grenades used by Orsini in his attempt. In the latter
case, Lord Chief Justice Campbell said to the jury: “If you
believe that he, as there is strong evidence to show, being
acquainted with Allsop’s views, and knowing that Allsop had
got these grenades, _assisted in having them, transported to
Brussels,--if you believe that he bought in this country the
materials for making the fulminating powder with which these
grenades were charged_,--if you believe, that, living in this
country, and owing a temporary allegiance to the sovereign
of this country, _he sent over the revolvers_ with the view
that they should be used in the plot against the Emperor of
the French, … it will be a fair inference, I think, to draw,
that he had a guilty knowledge of that plot.”[170] Though this
judgment was in the case of a conspiracy to take the life of a
foreign sovereign, it is not easy to see why the same principle
is not applicable to a conspiracy against a friendly power.
To this case may be added the authority of Lord Lyndhurst,
who laid it down in debate, with the concurrence of other Law
Lords, that a conspiracy in the United Kingdom, either by
native subjects or aliens, to do any act, either at home or
abroad, tending to embroil the Government with that of any
foreign country, is a misdemeanor.[171] Is a rebellion without
belligerent rights different from a conspiracy? Its nature was
changed by the Queen’s Proclamation, which not only helped the
Rebels, but created a new set of customers.
The character of the leader in the _Times_ appears in its
conclusion:--
“We believe our readers have by this time had enough of
the logic of Mr. Sumner. It is based neither on law nor on
fact, but upon his own sympathies and antipathies, which he
is pleased to assume must also be ours, on the supposition,
which we do not admit, that the North are obviously in the
right, and on the inference, which we refuse to draw, that,
even if the North are in the right, we are bound to violate
the laws of neutrality in order to assist them.”